(22 February 2016) TrendMD, the leading scholarly content discoverability recommendation platform, shows it increased weekly article pageviews by 49% in a controlled study across 500 articles, offering an effective post-publication dissemination strategy for research and professional news articles in a study now published in Learned Publishing.

Unlike publicity, social media, and paid advertising, such as Google AdWords which has become a common tactic for marketers in the publishing industry, TrendMD is unique in helping readers discover relevant articles exactly at the time they are reading research of interest from a highly qualified network of engaged readers.

The test measured the baseline weekly page views, without the benefit of TrendMD recommendations, to 500 randomly selected articles from a single journal, Journal of Medical Internet Research. In the second week, TrendMD recommendations accounted for 30.5% and in the third week TrendMD recommendations increased to 49% of article views. In the second week, the publisher allocated $100 budget to promote the 500 articles, indicated as ‘sponsored’ recommendations in the widget, and increased the budget to $250 in the second week.

Articles selected for inclusion in the study were between 0.5 to 2 years old (median article age 1.2 years), which typically show declining readership after publication. Before TrendMD, baseline article views of the 500 articles decreased by an average of 14% per week. TrendMD offset this decay by providing visibility to the articles to highly targeted audiences.

“As a scientist and researcher, it’s rewarding to see the data provide evidence that TrendMD improves discoverability connecting the right content to the interested audience,” said Paul Kudlow, CEO and Cofounder of TrendMD. “We’re pleased to deliver the research to readers and an affordable content marketing solution for publishers.”